Julie Klam: When Animals Rescue Us

Even if you are not a dog person, you will be a Julie Klam person. Reading about her life through the lens of her relationships with the Boston Terriers she has rescued over the years, I became Klam’s fan, then grew to feel as if she were an old friend, and by the end of her memoir, You Had Me at Woof, she had become an inspiration. Her often funny and always fresh and honest stories about herself, her dogs, her friends, and her family, are at turns easy-going and deeply moving. By the end of each doggie tale (or tail), I felt a little bit wiser, not a bit preached at, and wholly welcomed into the bedlam that is life with dogs, babies, husband — and all within a tiny New York City apartment.

The fact that Klam writes of her days on the Upper West Side definitely helped suck me into her stories. I also was a mother of young children (mine were all of the two-legged kind), roaming between the parks (Central and Riverside) and between feedings and sleeping, and I also know the crowding of a bed with warm bodies all just wanting to get close to mama. Klam made me remember those days while also imagining what it would have been like with a few four-legged sweethearts thrown into the mix. Not easy, especially when the “sweethearts” are rescued dogs with some serious issues. Klam never sugarcoats the realities of fostering abandoned dogs to make it sound easy. What she does show is that the hard work of taking care of those who depend upon us pays off with a quality of love and loyalty that only our four-legged companions can give.

And speaking of only, only the hardest of hearts could hold out against the cover of You Had Me at Woof, and the title itself is irresistible. How lucky that the pages inside are just as good.